Pierre Jeanson, French résistant and survivor of the Dora labour camp – obituary

Pierre Jeanson, who has died aged 94, was a French résistant who survived the infamous Dora labour camp in Germany, where he was forced to work on the assembly of V2 rockets.

Having first been sent to the Vichy regime’s chantiers de jeunesse (paramilitary youth camps) in the Jura region, the young Jeanson became a member of the Organisation de résistance de l’Armée (ORA), a network established by former officers of the disbanded French army following German occupation of the southern “free zone” in November 1942.

ORA’s aim was to establish clandestine military structures in advance of liberation, operating separately from partisan Resistance groups. In due course Jeanson realised he was in danger of conscription for work in German factories.

He escaped southwards, hoping to reach England via Spain, with the aim of joining the RAF, but was arrested in Toulouse, having been sold to the Germans...